A Google engineer says that five months is a reasonable wait for an ICS update

Sony recently updated its Tablet S product from Android 3 to Android 4. The latest version of Android, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), was released in November. According to Jean-Baptiste Queru, an Android platform engineer at Google, the five-month wait is “very reasonable,” in light of the complexity involved in moving from Honeycomb to ICS.

Queru also acknowledged that Google has yet to roll out the ICS update to some variants of its own flagship Nexus device. He attributed the issue to delays caused by the network operator approval process. The remarks, which were posted on Google+, have drawn scrutiny from Android enthusiasts and developers who are concerned about Android version fragmentation and the lack of predictable update availability in the Android ecosystem.

At Google I/O last year, Google’s Andy Rubin announced a new initiative to streamline the update process. The search giant said it would collaborate with handset manufacturers and mobile carriers to come up with a strategy for making Android updates more timely and predictable.

At the time, Rubin said that the effort was still at an exploratory stage and that it hadn’t produced any actual solutions yet. Google hasn’t issued any further remarks on the status of the update initiative. The update situation arguably hasn’t improved much since that announcement.

Ultimately, there might not be much that Google can do to address the issue. Critics of the Android update model often compare it to Apple’s approach with iOS, where new versions of the operating system are rolled out to old devices at the same time that they launch on new devices.

Apple has a much smaller range of devices to contend with, however, compared to the breadth of the Android ecosystem, which has a more diverse spectrum of hardware. It’s worth noting that Microsoft has also encountered update difficulties with its own Windows Phone operating system.

One thing that Google could do to help simplify the process is to start developing Android in the open instead of developing it behind closed doors and doing a code drop for each major release. Easier access to the code while it’s in development would allow handset makers to do continuous integration and give them a head start on addressing challenges they need to overcome to align their own customizations with new versions of the platform.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant. Im guessing these guys have more than one person with a better budget and time?

I dont get why my Xperia Play on ATT cant even get the 2.3.4 update to have HD Video enabled.. let alone ICS on it. Guees I am done waiting for them to do it.. i'll just root it and put it on myself. Beta test all day anyways. might as well do it on my phone too ;-)

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant. Im guessing these guys have more than one person with a better budget and time?

The single-developer version has no QA. It's easy to ship software if no one is there reporting bugs. It's not something that you'd want to unleash on the world at large though.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant. Im guessing these guys have more than one person with a better budget and time?

The difference is that XDA developers will always say that "if you have a problem, do a full wipe first".

OTA updates can't be like that and so they have to test against many more scenarios.

And this is why developers (and hobbyists) prefer to develop for iOS first, Android second. Some people may dispute this due to the near-parity with regards to the number of apps, but the quality of the apps then comes into question. I currently have an iPhone 4 and was really seriously looking at getting the Galaxy Note. However, the lack of Note-enhanced apps and the pace of Android OS updates has left me sticking with my iPhone for now. For me, the only really compelling reason to switch to Android is the amazing screen size... however, if the iPhone 5 doesn't offer a compelling hardware upgrade for the screen dimensions, I am going to stick with iOS. It's restrictive on the surface, but it has a lot more freedom to offer with regards to software optimizations and software updates.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant. Im guessing these guys have more than one person with a better budget and time?

The difference is that XDA developers will always say that "if you have a problem, do a full wipe first".

OTA updates can't be like that and so they have to test against many more scenarios.

I agree, i think its just strange..look at it like this.. One guy makes an update, he works on it at his spare time and updates once a week.He does this for free, on his spare time while still juggling his pay job and life. The only time he hits a wall is with hardware like a camera not working which takes time to go around it.Most the XDA post ive seen is "camera doesn't work" or camera works but recording quality is low.

These companies im guessing have more than one guy just focused on the update with better resources.

Even with a proper update mechanism just what incentive is there for the phone manufacturers or the carriers to care? They make no money from the software in the first instance and no money from people keeping their devices for too long in the second. Both need users to upgrade hardware as often as possible and the way to get them to do it is to withhold OS updates to ensure that they do. The ability to quickly update the OS won't make any difference to that and it is extremely doubtful that it would even be used if it was available.

Even with a proper update mechanism just what incentive is there for the phone manufacturers or the carriers to care? They make no money from the software in the first instance and no money from people keeping their devices for too long in the second. Both need users to upgrade hardware as often as possible and the way to get them to do it is to withhold OS updates to ensure that they do. The ability to quickly update the OS won't make any difference to that and it is extremely doubtful that it would even be used if it was available.

The most important reason is: good will - Telecoms distinctly like this in a big way - they think of themselves like the Electric Co, Water Co and Gas Co, but in fact they are nothing like these utility companies. They actually require a good customer service relationship with their customers and yet they seem completely unable to do it.

Airlines and Telecom companies both seem to have this systematic suckiness which let's you know that at some point someone will come in and wash them away with good customer service (and probably a better overall product.) I've actually always expected SouthWest to one day finally get some gumption and do it to the rest of the airlines, but in some ways they are still very much a "part" of the system.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant. Im guessing these guys have more than one person with a better budget and time?

The difference is that XDA developers will always say that "if you have a problem, do a full wipe first".

OTA updates can't be like that and so they have to test against many more scenarios.

I agree, i think its just strange..look at it like this.. One guy makes an update, he works on it at his spare time and updates once a week.He does this for free, on his spare time while still juggling his pay job and life. The only time he hits a wall is with hardware like a camera not working which takes time to go around it.Most the XDA post ive seen is "camera doesn't work" or camera works but recording quality is low.

These companies im guessing have more than one guy just focused on the update with better resources.

edit: spelling

I read from one manufacture that they also have to get devices retested and recertified running the new software. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a major bottleneck in the update process.

Apple only has to develop against a couple phones, and tablets. All have same screen size 3.5 and 10.

Even if Android manufactures didn't skin the operating system from what I read the source code that is released is tailored towards the nexus device that it was released on. They still have to modify it. Then you have to take into the all the different procs, screen sizes, resolutions, camera's, modems, flash memory, etc that these manufactures use so they will never be as fast as Apple.

Can anyone with a knowledge of programming operating systems answer this question ?Can android be made so its easier to update it for a variety of components, like Windows ?

I've never bought an Android phone, so readers can correct me. But my impression is that in the case of 99.X% of US Android sales, vendor U (say, Sony) sold the phone to carrier V, and user W, who thinks he bought a Sony phone, actually bought a Y phone that Sony built to the carrier's specs.

Carrier V had some acceptance tests at purchase, and U proved that they met the contractual specs. All they have to do now, is crank out a million more just like it.

In other words, “customer” W is NOT the customer. Verizon wants Walt to perceive that the entire value is in the V network and service that Walt pays the monthly bill to. U may not even know who W is, in any way, shape or form. No warranty registration, service agreement, opt-in for marketing info between U and W.

Isn't that basically how it works?

And what's even more obvious: W never gave a red cent to Google, Inc. Google never signed any agreement with him saying that they'd provide even “best efforts” to fix bugs, even. Why should W expect a thing from some company he's never done anything with, other than see ads when he visited their sites?

Anybody ever read what was promised? Anything? Certainly not bug fixes, or replacement of crappy video drivers, since those don't seem to happen & I never hear of class-action suits.

Now, when I say, why should W expect to see updates, I'm not blaming W for stupidity; the advertising never explicitly lies when it assured him that he could threaten alien assassins and make fun of wanna-be-homeless types, if he just bought their phone. But I do think that Google has been at best disingenuous when they say they're working on fixing this. In fact, the Android alliance is a bit of a mess these days, with only Samsung making any money; hard to devote engineers' time to giving some candy to a should-be-happy customer when you're trying to find the formula for getting your next product to stand out.

The request for enhanced upgrade policies is essentially asking for V to compete on the basis of quality with … itself. I'm just not seeing why anybody expects that to work.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant...

Not me.

The single dev can code it up, test it and decide it's good to go without consulting anyone else. Especially if it's a community release.

A "huge company" is likely to require weeks of internal testing, 47 signatures and a whole bunch of other red tape/validations before it goes out the door because there's some level of [perceived] liability associated with it and they're more concerned about that than getting it out the door.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant...

Not me.

The single dev can code it up, test it and decide it's good to go without consulting anyone else. Especially if it's a community release.

A "huge company" is likely to require weeks of internal testing, 47 signatures and a whole bunch of other red tape/validations before it goes out the door because there's some level of [perceived] liability associated with it and they're more concerned about that than getting it out the door.

This is the perfect description of a bureaucracy that is ripe for disruption. And yet, it describes the products of a company that we all think of as being a disruptor.

I used to think that the competition between iOS and Android would be great for everyone. I upgraded from a Blackberry a few years ago because it was vastly better than anything I could find on the market at the time - and I loved it. I then upgraded to the 4S and it's an amazing phone.

But every article about Apple (almost regardless of the content) has the Android fanatics posting "Apple sucks" and "stupid iTards, get a real phone". And now Samsung is telling me I'm an iSheep with no brain of my own - I just bought an iPhone because everyone else is doing it. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm also just a hipster that works in a coffee shop. This really makes me feel more antagonistic towards Android and the Android community.

The problem with beings so arrogant and hateful against Apple and it's community of customers is that you better have your own shit together. And then I read an article like this.

People are just getting upgrades from 2.3 *now*? Wait, it's not for everyone, this is just one more product of a *minority* of Android products that you can get ICS on?! Whoa, some googling shows me that between 90 and 95% of Android devices are on 2.3.x and *older*. ICS seems nice and all... for the 4% of you that actually have it. What a joke.

And even the few of you that do have ICS, it's not as fast on any phone I've seen as my 4S is (that was released 6 months ago). The majority of benchmarks bear that out, but I'm talking just using the phones myself to move between icon pages and load apps. I tried the Galaxy Nexus, the Note, and the new HTC One X the other day - they still have input and UI lag compared to my 4S! Seriously?! I keep hearing how ICS (finally!) has hardware acceleration. Did everyone forget to use it? Or does it just suck as much as trying to upgrade an Android sucks?

The one thing that was nice was the HTC One screen. It looked as good as my 4S screen; bright and sharp and vivid. It's the first Android screen I've seen that I could switch to from my iPhone and not feel like it was a downgrade. Maybe the One avoids using the Pentile which looks like shit and seems to be on almost every Android out there - or maybe they figured out how to make Pentile not be so terrible.

But apart from the HTC One's screen, the rest of the Android experience was unimpressive. Laggy and unresponsive (compared to an iPhone 4S), the Note is not meant for real people, just the guys who want to carry a tablet in their pants and call it a phone. And the Galaxy Nexus, which I heard was awesome was good all around, but nothing really stood out. I'd take the One over the Galaxy Nexus.

Add to that the other well known Android problems (malware infested Google Marketplace, app quality is very lacking for anything but top tier titles, and, to top it all off, you have an advertising company that created your phone OS and when you sign on with your Google ID they are tracking everything you do) and I can't see why you guys love Android at all.

It's shit like this that made me decide that my next smartphone will be an iPhone. In my eyes Google is simply not treating Android seriously enough.

(And before anyone says "what about Windows Mobile", I think Microsoft is even worse so far, they're almost as bad as Google in enforcing updates but they're also not open source so you don't have custom firmware options. You basically get the worst of two worlds.)

The way I look at it is that they need to separate the OS from the drivers just like Windows, this will make deployment much faster. Can you imagine if Windows 7 came out and Dell or HP said it would take them 6 months to prep HP version of Windows 7. How is it that Nvidia and AMD can roll out drivers same day new version of Windows comes out and company like Samsung can't.

I rooted my Galaxy as soon as the new OS came out and couldn't be happier. I hate all that T-Mo crap that's running in the background and eating up my RAM.

But every article about Apple (almost regardless of the content) has the Android fanatics posting "Apple sucks" and "stupid iTards, get a real phone". And now Samsung is telling me I'm an iSheep with no brain of my own - I just bought an iPhone because everyone else is doing it. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm also just a hipster that works in a coffee shop. This really makes me feel more antagonistic towards Android and the Android community.

The problem with beings so arrogant and hateful against Apple and it's community of customers is that you better have your own shit together. And then I read an article like this.

I don't like it, but there it is. Course you better also remember years of "get a mac" and "switcher" commercials as well.

Quote:

People are just getting upgrades from 2.3 *now*? Wait, it's not for everyone, this is just one more product of a *minority* of Android products that you can get ICS on?! Whoa, some googling shows me that between 90 and 95% of Android devices are on 2.3.x and *older*. ICS seems nice and all... for the 4% of you that actually have it. What a joke.

We'll see how that fares now that HTC and Samsung are rolling out the updates + phones that have it natively.

Quote:

And even the few of you that do have ICS, it's not as fast on any phone I've seen as my 4S is (that was released 6 months ago). The majority of benchmarks bear that out, but I'm talking just using the phones myself to move between icon pages and load apps. I tried the Galaxy Nexus, the Note, and the new HTC One X the other day - they still have input and UI lag compared to my 4S! Seriously?! I keep hearing how ICS (finally!) has hardware acceleration. Did everyone forget to use it? Or does it just suck as much as trying to upgrade an Android sucks?

There was a big improvement in my HTC Sensation. Of course, I have an apple iphone 3G here that makes my HTC mytouch running 2.2 not look so bad (in other words, one was forced to 2.2 while the other never should have gotten 4.x.x).

Then I saw an iphone4 have slight lag in it as well, compared to an ipod touch that was from the 3gs generation.

Lag is something that people bitch and whine about, but I'll take whatever "lag" my phone has to be able to do what it does over an iphone. Just my opinion.

Quote:

The one thing that was nice was the HTC One screen. It looked as good as my 4S screen; bright and sharp and vivid. It's the first Android screen I've seen that I could switch to from my iPhone and not feel like it was a downgrade. Maybe the One avoids using the Pentile which looks like shit and seems to be on almost every Android out there - or maybe they figured out how to make Pentile not be so terrible.

It has pentile; perhaps it was never "shit" to begin with. *edit* that depends on the one x or s.

Quote:

Add to that the other well known Android problems (malware infested Google Marketplace, app quality is very lacking for anything but top tier titles, and, to top it all off, you have an advertising company that created your phone OS and when you sign on with your Google ID they are tracking everything you do) and I can't see why you guys love Android at all.

That marketplace also has tools for me to do things I want to my phone that even jailbroken iphones dream of. Trade offs, yes. But tracking everything you do? What do you think location services does in an iphone? That opt out page for apple is not for nothing. I'm not forced to turn it on.

I have no ads on my phone, thanks. It's great you can either proclaim (or troll) you are happy with your ios 5.x on your phone so you can, uh, finally not be tied to a computer for media, or for updates, or sync over a cloud to backup your settings and contacts for free, or have a notification system from, uh...that os that had it since day one...

The way I look at it is that they need to separate the OS from the drivers just like Windows, this will make deployment much faster. Can you imagine if Windows 7 came out and Dell or HP said it would take them 6 months to prep HP version of Windows 7. How is it that Nvidia and AMD can roll out drivers same day new version of Windows comes out and company like Samsung can't.

I don't have to imagine - this happened multiple times over the past 17 years.

Building drivers requires the kernel source code - it isn't finalized until the release of that version of android. Sony however looks to have worked with Google on the code that is in progress.

Writing the software doesn't mean that Google can deploy it immediately, there are operator approvals for devices that are sold and/or supported by operators. Look at the US WiFi Xoom: obviously no operator approval, upgraded to 4.0.3 back in December (the first version of ICS that ran on anything other than Galaxy Nexus) and now running 4.0.4.﻿

But every article about Apple (almost regardless of the content) has the Android fanatics posting "Apple sucks" and "stupid iTards, get a real phone". And now Samsung is telling me I'm an iSheep with no brain of my own - I just bought an iPhone because everyone else is doing it. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm also just a hipster that works in a coffee shop. This really makes me feel more antagonistic towards Android and the Android community.

And, just like the moderated post in this thread, you have the Android-haters calling it "crap" and useless. Then, another batch of iFans who say Apple invented everything and Google/Samsung copied them.

So, there is a lot of iPride proselytizing here as well. That, in turn, makes Android fans use terms like iSheep.

Most corporations spend a year moving from one version of Windows to the next. You expect Sony, or Verizon, to roll out a new OS to their customers with no down time and no outages and it only take a couple months? I hate the telcos as much as the next guy, but think about the logistics of what you are asking for. 5 months seems pretty speedy to me, considering.

I used to think that the competition between iOS and Android would be great for everyone. I upgraded from a Blackberry a few years ago because it was vastly better than anything I could find on the market at the time - and I loved it. I then upgraded to the 4S and it's an amazing phone.

But every article about Apple (almost regardless of the content) has the Android fanatics posting "Apple sucks" and "stupid iTards, get a real phone". And now Samsung is telling me I'm an iSheep with no brain of my own - I just bought an iPhone because everyone else is doing it. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm also just a hipster that works in a coffee shop. This really makes me feel more antagonistic towards Android and the Android community.

The problem with beings so arrogant and hateful against Apple and it's community of customers is that you better have your own shit together. And then I read an article like this.

People are just getting upgrades from 2.3 *now*? Wait, it's not for everyone, this is just one more product of a *minority* of Android products that you can get ICS on?! Whoa, some googling shows me that between 90 and 95% of Android devices are on 2.3.x and *older*. ICS seems nice and all... for the 4% of you that actually have it. What a joke.

And even the few of you that do have ICS, it's not as fast on any phone I've seen as my 4S is (that was released 6 months ago). The majority of benchmarks bear that out, but I'm talking just using the phones myself to move between icon pages and load apps. I tried the Galaxy Nexus, the Note, and the new HTC One X the other day - they still have input and UI lag compared to my 4S! Seriously?! I keep hearing how ICS (finally!) has hardware acceleration. Did everyone forget to use it? Or does it just suck as much as trying to upgrade an Android sucks?

The one thing that was nice was the HTC One screen. It looked as good as my 4S screen; bright and sharp and vivid. It's the first Android screen I've seen that I could switch to from my iPhone and not feel like it was a downgrade. Maybe the One avoids using the Pentile which looks like shit and seems to be on almost every Android out there - or maybe they figured out how to make Pentile not be so terrible.

But apart from the HTC One's screen, the rest of the Android experience was unimpressive. Laggy and unresponsive (compared to an iPhone 4S), the Note is not meant for real people, just the guys who want to carry a tablet in their pants and call it a phone. And the Galaxy Nexus, which I heard was awesome was good all around, but nothing really stood out. I'd take the One over the Galaxy Nexus.

Add to that the other well known Android problems (malware infested Google Marketplace, app quality is very lacking for anything but top tier titles, and, to top it all off, you have an advertising company that created your phone OS and when you sign on with your Google ID they are tracking everything you do) and I can't see why you guys love Android at all.

I've heard of Android seeming to be "sluggish" compared to iPhones. Problem is, when I've compared them the Android tended to load faster and move smoother. When websurfing, the iPhone made it feel like I was dragging the webpages through molasses, the camera took longer to load and as has been noted in studies, iOS apps crash more often then Android apps (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/ ... data-dive/) To each their own experiences I guess (I also managed to cause the first iPhone I touch to have a whole system crash in 30 seconds).

As for people complaining that you should "buy a real phone", it comes from people like you and your rant here. You have used mis-information to claim that one is better then to other, and some of your examples show you didn't really try an Android and you wanted to use hear-say instead of facts. Not to mention many, MANY Apple fans are much, MUCH worse to anyone who doesn't use an Apple device (or as one person so famously put it with the Instagram being on Android "Instagram just went from a Country Club to a country in a club" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-574093 ... gram-club/) Its this feeling of "elitism" that makes people hate iPhone users. (I've met many of these people before in real life, literally turning up their nose if it isn't an Apple product).

As for malware in the Google Store, yes its there. Its also on the iOS store, Apple just doesn't like to admit it. As was noticed when they banned Charlies Miller for finding, alerting and when not fixed even for iOS , banned him for showing a proof of concept of malware in the iOS store (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/ ... rogram.ars) This is normal for Apple, hide the proof and deny its they and oh well for those who get burned. It also has a huge issue with accounts being hacked somehow for over a year and a half and Apple isn't doing anything about it (http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/tech ... mers-84434)

Enjoy your iPhone, there is a reason many people have chosen Android over it and it might surprise you the facts and reasons why.

[snip]I read from one manufacture that they also have to get devices retested and recertified running the new software. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a major bottleneck in the update process.

Apple only has to develop against a couple phones, and tablets. All have same screen size 3.5 and 10.

Even if Android manufactures didn't skin the operating system from what I read the source code that is released is tailored towards the nexus device that it was released on. They still have to modify it. Then you have to take into the all the different procs, screen sizes, resolutions, camera's, modems, flash memory, etc that these manufactures use so they will never be as fast as Apple.

Can anyone with a knowledge of programming operating systems answer this question ?Can android be made so its easier to update it for a variety of components, like Windows ?

One way to read what you're saying is that the Android phone is shipped with just enough “bundled” engineering talent to get it thru what must be rather rigorous initial acceptance processes. The “prepaid” (if you will) re-certification with the carriers is NOT included; they'll be done whenever a little support team gets to it… a team that ALSO probably has a bunch of other responsibilities, such as new product work, as well as a host of other models' recerts.

In other words, you're saying that buying an Android phone is buying a device which has relatively little value-add from the free OS. Worse, suppose the firm has significantly upgraded its hardware on new models: the new screen drivers for ICS might not be applicable at all for the old hardware; it'll require a from-scratch rewrite. Worse again, if there's a lot of skinning or other vendor-specific look'n'feel, there may be a LOT of those incompatible drivers and interfaces to rewrite.

I think that validates the headline: it must be a lot of work, for relatively little customer satisfaction and almost no incremental sales, to do these types of upgrades. Especially an audience like Ars's must appreciate that. A wonder that anybody actually expects it faster, in fact.

Why is everyone taking this out of context in headlines? He didn't say for "Android", he said for Android 4, because it's a big overhaul compared to Gingerbread. It's like moving from XP to Windows 7. Future versions won't upgrade this slow.

It's also too bad that you're completely missing the point of what he said. He lauded Sony because they were more open with their code, and contributed back to the Android Open Source Project, and he said that if all manufacturers would do that, they would be able to upgrade faster as well. That should've been the main focus of the article, not the misleading topic that "Android takes 5 months to be upgraded".

Somehow, I don't expect that exposing new Android versions before "final drop" would result in better updates for handsets. The manufacturers just have too little incentive to update their phones, and too much benefit to the phones becoming outdated faster (ie. buy a new phone). It might help more new phones be launched with the latest Android, but even then only if the manufacturer is willing to gamble on Google's development and release schedule.

But every article about Apple (almost regardless of the content) has the Android fanatics posting "Apple sucks" and "stupid iTards, get a real phone". And now Samsung is telling me I'm an iSheep with no brain of my own - I just bought an iPhone because everyone else is doing it. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm also just a hipster that works in a coffee shop. This really makes me feel more antagonistic towards Android and the Android community.

It's mutual. Every Android article has iFanatics posting "Hurrr fragmentation" and "Thiiiieeeves!" And back in the day there were Apple's "I'm a Mac/PC" commercials, like sprocketts noted.

The squabbling's even worse at Engadget; I swear I should stop reading the comments there.

It boggles my mind that a single developer for my mytouch 4g can throw out the latest update , and stable with very few or if any glitches, but a huge company cant. Im guessing these guys have more than one person with a better budget and time?

The difference is that XDA developers will always say that "if you have a problem, do a full wipe first".

OTA updates can't be like that and so they have to test against many more scenarios.

I agree, i think its just strange..look at it like this.. One guy makes an update, he works on it at his spare time and updates once a week.He does this for free, on his spare time while still juggling his pay job and life. The only time he hits a wall is with hardware like a camera not working which takes time to go around it.Most the XDA post ive seen is "camera doesn't work" or camera works but recording quality is low.

These companies im guessing have more than one guy just focused on the update with better resources.

edit: spelling

I read from one manufacture that they also have to get devices retested and recertified running the new software. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a major bottleneck in the update process.

Apple only has to develop against a couple phones, and tablets. All have same screen size 3.5 and 10.

Even if Android manufactures didn't skin the operating system from what I read the source code that is released is tailored towards the nexus device that it was released on. They still have to modify it. Then you have to take into the all the different procs, screen sizes, resolutions, camera's, modems, flash memory, etc that these manufactures use so they will never be as fast as Apple.

Can anyone with a knowledge of programming operating systems answer this question ?Can android be made so its easier to update it for a variety of components, like Windows ?

What was the number of SKUs for the phone(s) known as galaxy S II? I think the Wikipedia article lists some 6-7. And that is not the only Samsung model with the issue. Any brand phone that shows up on Verizon is internally different from the ones sold to GSM/UMTS operators around the globe even if it is called the same and looks the same. This down to the CPU used thanks to the SoC nature of phone internals.

But every article about Apple (almost regardless of the content) has the Android fanatics posting "Apple sucks" and "stupid iTards, get a real phone". And now Samsung is telling me I'm an iSheep with no brain of my own - I just bought an iPhone because everyone else is doing it. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm also just a hipster that works in a coffee shop. This really makes me feel more antagonistic towards Android and the Android community.

It's mutual. Every Android article has iFanatics posting "Hurrr fragmentation" and "Thiiiieeeves!" And back in the day there were Apple's "I'm a Mac/PC" commercials, like sprocketts noted.

The squabbling's even worse at Engadget; I swear I should stop reading the comments there.

What was the number of SKUs for the phone(s) known as galaxy S II? I think the Wikipedia article lists some 6-7. And that is not the only Samsung model with the issue. Any brand phone that shows up on Verizon is internally different from the ones sold to GSM/UMTS operators around the globe even if it is called the same and looks the same. This down to the CPU used thanks to the SoC nature of phone internals.

Yes one is normal or international, one for att, one for tmob, one for cdma, one for LTE, it really isn't their fault.

Or you can be apple and release a phone onto verizon or sprint in 2011 and get great 300-700kbps download speeds without simultaneous voice and data.

Lol @ the (fully expected) platform rivalry. I wish that people would understand that certain products fit the needs/preferences of certain types of users and leave it at that. If you think that one major platform/OS/device type/etc. is universally superior to another you should probably keep your virtual mouth shut, because more-than-likely you don't know what you're talking about.

I've heard of Android seeming to be "sluggish" compared to iPhones. Problem is, when I've compared them the Android tended to load faster and move smoother. When websurfing, the iPhone made it feel like I was dragging the webpages through molasses, the camera took longer to load and as has been noted in studies, iOS apps crash more often then Android apps (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/ ... data-dive/) To each their own experiences I guess (I also managed to cause the first iPhone I touch to have a whole system crash in 30 seconds).

I suspect this depends on the kind of apps and games people load onto their device.

Facebook for instance is notorious for leaving processes going on Android. I think i counted no less than 4 running after their latest update. And that locks out ram for use by other apps. And games seems to often bundle various tracking code that often leave a process running or periodically fire one up.

Also, Android will unload the launcher when the user is operating some app. This means that if your dealing with a ram constrained device, you can be looking at a perfect storm of the used app eating into the ram, various other processes being fired up in the background and the user hitting the home button. All of a sudden Android is trying to unload the recently used app to free up ram so it can load the launcher, whole other processes are eating into the same ram. In the end this can be a perfect storm leading to some watchdog system or other going "i give up" and giving the kernel the order to reboot asap.

The one thing iOS has going for it in comparison is that Apple keep a tight leash on how apps can behave themselves. Only certain kinds of apps can run background processes, and the developers need to submit some very good reason for why it needs to be allowed to run in the background. Also, the only way to go out of a app, the home button, is a signal to the app to pack up and be ready to unload. iOS have no compulsion against throwing a app out of ram once the home button has been hit, no matter the kind of data loss that can lead to.

I'm confused.. Apple turns out new iOS versions about once a year. The difference between iOS and Android is that there's only one 'OEM' using iOS - Apple. That means they only have three phones (which are mostly the same) and three tablets (even more the same) to tweak it and test it against.

Android, on the other hand, it targetted for a mythical 'Nexus' (I say mythical because there isn't *one* Nexus), and many dozens of OEM phones and targets that are widely different from each other. Then each OEM skins it and adds a ton of apps that make it their own (whether or not you like it isn't relevent). Most of those OEMs aren't even Android-only.. they tend to be making Windows Phones and Bada and other devices.

So, yeah - getting from release of code to OEM update in five months is actually pretty decent.

Perhaps Google should release new Android quietly to OEMs under NDA and then announce it ONLY when the bigger OEMs are ready to ship. Then you'd see a more yearly release cycle and eveyrone would think "Cool.. just like Apple - another thing they're copying."

Honestly, I just wish Google would get on with it and turn Motrola into the 'one true Android' company - make a flagship line they can market directly against iOS and put more time and effort into building ecosystem.

As Goog devs have said in the past, hardware partners get early code access (the blessed partner for that particular release gets even earlier access). The problem has been pointed out many times.Lots of testing (at the various distribution levels) and, probably, slow carrier certification. With Apple, they can get rid of only one to those levels but thats been shown to be enough.

The problem is very simple. If the public wants updates, well, they should choose manufacturers (and perhaps carriers as well) based on their past record of who delivers updates the most reliably and quickly. Surprisingly, this is one metric that Sony, whose phones have otherwise sucked that does well.

The other thing that the public could do is to demand more AOSP phones and to buy them and to penalize manufacturers that load their custom crapware onto the phones.

Alas - all of this is just a dream. The average user lacks the technical knowledge to care about such things. I may like Android as an OS and I feel that Apple is a very unethical company, but that does not mean that I do not acknowledge that Android is not without it's flaws or that Apple in this case has done something much better than Google has.

Am I alone in wondering about Jelly Bean? I mean, it's six months since ICS, we should be hearing about what's planned next. Instead, we have a charade of firms unable / unwilling to upgrade devices that have barely hit the market to the current version of Android.

Meanwhile it's likely iOS 6 will be on show at WWDC.

I think the issue here is that Apple wants users to upgrade their OS, so they can keep people locked into their ecosystem and sell more apps and content.

But neither phone manufacturers nor carriers have much to gain financially from the considerable effort required to put together an official ICS upgrade. They'd rather you bought a new phone.

The one thing iOS has going for it in comparison is that Apple keep a tight leash on how apps can behave themselves. Only certain kinds of apps can run background processes, and the developers need to submit some very good reason for why it needs to be allowed to run in the background. Also, the only way to go out of a app, the home button, is a signal to the app to pack up and be ready to unload. iOS have no compulsion against throwing a app out of ram once the home button has been hit, no matter the kind of data loss that can lead to.

I've had friends tell me that iOS will slowly grind to a halt if not allowed to "sync" with a computer after a few days (they charge it with a wall charger) (random strangers too, I used to work in a computer shop that fixed computers and sometimes someone with an iPhone would ask if we can fix it from being so slow, and syncing it always fixed the problem. They would ask us since the nearest Apple store is almost 3 hours away, so 6 hours travel back an forth). This tells me there is more going on behind the scenes that slowly eats up ram on iOS.

I don't notice much slow does on my Nexus S (except with Google Chrome Beta, but I'm guessing part of that is why it's called a "beta" and I'm ok with that because I know I'm beta testing and not having that fact hid from me.) And I do play quite a few games on it. I just notice that it does kill them really quickly if I leave them to answer a message (maybe takes about 10-30 seconds max, but I don't count on it). Granted I don't play ad supported ones much, just one's I've paid for so who knows.